Much Ado about Not Very Much

Much Ado about Not Very Much

Article excerpt

The decision by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United
States to abolish its 50-year-old ban on broadcast advertising of
hard liquor has evoked a chorus of well-meaning protests - many of
them yielding more sound and fury than good sense. For President
Bill Clinton and others who are calling on the industry to reverse
its decision, the issue is about the dangers of exposing children
to the wrong kind of messages. There is something to this argument,
but not as much as is being made of it.

Beer and wine have been advertised - and glamorized - on TV for
decades. Though it takes less hard liquor to get drunk than it does
beer or wine, enough consumption of either of these heavily
advertised products leaves one just as impaired as 80 proof scotch
does. Underage drinking is, of course, a problem, and perhaps
exposing young people to ads glamorizing hard liquor will
contribute to it. But so do pervasive ads for beer and wine, and
not only on TV. Should beer and wine as well as hard liquor ads be
banned from all media for the sake of our children? …